Folie à Deux
by Azkabella
Summary: Whouffle AU: Nurse Clara Oswald takes a job working at a psychiatric facility where she is put in charge of the care of John Smith, one of the Institute's long-term patients. He suffers delusions that he's a time travelling alien, but Clara is able to see past the madness and into the man's heart.


_**Folie à deux** (French for "a madness shared by two") - a **shared psychosis**; a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief are transmitted from one individual to another._

* * *

"The treatment _was_ helping," Clara overheard the doctor say as she pinned her new ID badge to the pocket of her scrubs.

Dr. Simeon frowned at the nurse in front of him and handed over the clipboard. She hadn't known at the time, since it was his first day, but he'd just been looking at the lab work on John Smith, one of the Institute's long-term tenants. _Tenants_, she would later say with a sneer. _Already prisoners of their own minds, now we've got them locked up in another cell_.

Clara had just finished two years at a local hospital when the death of a patient she'd grown very close to prompted her to send out her resume. She had never considered working for a private institution like this, the sort with such a high-level of security, but the pay was good and it was miles away from Colonel Latimer. He was a kind man, but following his daughter's death, he'd grown too attached to Clara. She couldn't bear to look at him without thinking of Francesca, whereas he clung to her as a living reminder of the daughter he'd lost.

Nurse Flint gave her a wave when they all sat down for the morning meeting. Clara had met her weeks ago when she visited Dr Simeon for the interview. The knowledge that someone on the staff was that friendly and inviting had been part of what had made accepting the job as easy as it was. Not that it was easy.

Dr Simeon began by running down the list of patience in the ward, assigning nurses to their daily duties. Some patients did better with familiar faces, so most of the nurses' assignments didn't need announcing, but Clara's name drew everyone's attention when she was assigned to John Smith. She tried not to squirm under everyone's gaze, but she felt like she was being visually assaulted.

"Is that his real name?" she asked Dr Simeon after everyone was dismissed. "John Smith?"

"No one knows his name," he replied. "He's been here since he was a boy; we think his family were INLA."

Clara wasn't sure what to make of Dr Simeon. Perhaps she was just sensitive, but his manner was a few degrees past frank and into something almost offensive. Still, he didn't seem unkind, just icy.

She spent the next half hour reading about her new patient. Nurse Vastra had been his caretaker before, but she had been reassigned to another ward once her relationship with a colleague was found out. Clara thought that was a bit severe; she didn't see how a relationship with a co-worker would impair one's ability to look after her patient.

"It's against the rules though," Nurse Flint told her when she said as much. With a grin, she added, "Hasn't hurt her relationship, either."

"What, you mean, you and her?"

Jenny nodded. "Not what you were expecting?"

"Well, I wasn't expecting it to be Dr Simeon."

The girls stopped giggling when they received a disapproving look from one of the attending doctors. They looked properly chided before going back to sipping their tea and reading over their patient reports.

"Says here he used to be a patient of Dr River Song, but then he transferred from the Institute for no reason."

"She."

"Pardon?"

"Dr Song was a she, and there was a reason, alright. She fell in love with him."

"What? With the patient?" Clara replied dubiously.

"Don't sound so surprised. You'll understand better when you meet him. She helped him for a little while, I think. But then I think they both made each other worse. She wasn't all right in the head herself, but she was brilliant. She just thought she could save him."

"You mean cure him?"

Jenny sighed sadly. "Let me save you some trouble right now, dear—there's no saving John Smith."

John didn't know Clara, so she felt a bit odd walking into his room without a familiar face introducing her. Dr Simeon said that was probably for the best. "He's distrustful of most people who tend to him. He thinks I'm some great enemy who's trying to destroy him. His sickness is a coping mechanism; he constructs his own reality to escape from the trauma that landed him here in the first place."

"Does no one know what happened to him?"

Dr Simeon shook his head. "No one knows. Some think he watched his parents get executed in his own home, others think he killed them himself. Whatever the story, it doesn't matter."

She took a deep breath before knocking on his door, more as a courtesy than a request to enter, and then stepped into her new patient's room.

Clara didn't see him at first, but as soon as her eyes adjusted to the bright light streaming through the windows, she saw him curled up in the darkest corner, hugging his knees and staring at the wall.

"John?"

He didn't respond.

"My name's Nurse Oswald," she called, taking a few hesitant steps in his direction. She stopped once she reached the foot of the bed, making sure to keep some distance from him. His file said he had a history of violent outbursts, but that he hadn't had any since they started him on his newest medication. The only trouble was, his medication turned him into a zombie. All he did for the first week she was there was stare blankly at a wall. The only sign that he acknowledged her presence was that he blinked more rapidly when she was talking.

He was lying in bed when she came in to visit him during the second week. She was supposed to start him on his first round of the new medication, the one Dr Simeon hoped would 'bring him down from his cloud.' After reading his file, Clara was afraid that the shift in medication might bring out a violent outburst. She'd handled unruly patients before, but this one was nearly a foot taller than she was.

Not that she'd ever seen him standing. So far he kept to his corner or lay curled up in his bed whenever she'd visit. He would take the pills and the cup of water, down them both, and then show her his tongue to prove that he wasn't storing the pills in his mouth. She knew she should be more detached—it was what she was faulted for at her last job—but he broke her heart. His eyes were so sad; he seemed so lonely.

"Perhaps he might respond well to company," she said. "Maybe someone could read to him?"

Dr Simeon shook his head. "He's already got enough stories in his head."

The new medication was bringing John 'round. Clara went to visit him the third week and he reached for her hand after she'd given him his medication. She gasped, but didn't yank her hand away. She didn't know why.

"Don't walk away," he said.

"Would you like me to stay?" she asked, heart racing at hearing his voice for the first time. She told herself to not be foolish; he was a good-looking man, but he was ill _and_ her patient. She didn't fall for patients.

"I hate to see you go. I wish you would stay with me, in the TARDIS."

"The TARDIS?" she replied, urging him to continue speaking.

He bowed his head. "I know. You've got your own life. I don't want to ruin it. I just feel like you'd be happy in the TARDIS… with me."

He spoke to her with the tenderness of a lover. Clara swallowed heavily and looked down at the thumb tracing circles on the inside of her wrist. "John, I should really get back to work."

He released her hand and bowed his head. "Of course, sorry. I was being silly."

She hated how much she wanted to smooth back his hair and offer him a warm smile. She allowed herself to do the latter. "It's alright. No harm done. I'll come visit you later."

"Clara?"

She stopped at the door. She couldn't remember ever mentioning her first name to him, and the sound of it coming from his mouth made her heart beat even faster. "Yes?"

"You don't need to call me John, like the others do. They're only pretending. I'd rather you go back to calling me Doctor."

She turned around. "I don't think Dr Simeon would like that, John."

His jaw tensed. "Clara, listen to me. You can't trust that man."

"He's your doctor, John…"

"No _I'm_ the Doctor!"

Clara flinched at his outburst, blinking rapidly as his features relaxed.

"I don't want him to hurt you. Not like the last time."

"What do you mean, the last time?" she asked curiously, feet carrying her back towards his bed.

He lifted her hand to his lips as soon as it was in reach and Clara shut her eyes.

"My Clara," he said reverently, his own eyes closing as his lips caressed her hand. "I won't let anything bad happen to you ever again."

She wished she could say she did it without thinking, but she thought about it a great deal before she twisted her hand so that her palm rested against his cheek. He smiled around a shaky breath and leaned into her touch, which was when Clara sucked in a sharp breath and came to her senses.

"I'll… be back later," she said quickly before dashing from the room.

Clara stayed up late in her flat eating re-heated take away and poring over John Smith's files. There were detailed descriptions of his numerous delusions, all running on similar themes: he thought he was an alien with two hearts named the Doctor who travelled in space and time in a blue box. He thought that everyone he came into contact with was either a friend or an enemy, which either meant he would cling to them or physically try to fight them off.

The medication had recently stripped some of his delusions away. Dr Simeon, according to the file, was frequently the villain in John's tales. It was only recently that he stopped calling him names like Davros and the Master and instead acknowledged his real name. "It's the most progress we've seen in him yet," Dr Simeon told her one rainy afternoon."

"Dr Simeon," she began nervously. "Does he not have any visitors?"

He sighed thoughtfully. "There have been a few volunteers from the local university. Recently there was a girl—a young writer—who came and read him stories. She really just helped feed his problem. He started to believe she was married to one of the nurses and somehow the mother of Dr Song, who was twice her age, mind you. He explained it all with time travel, of course."

One thing Clara liked about Dr Simeon was that he didn't treat John like he was crazy. She'd met too many psychiatric specialist who did, many of whom would twirl their fingers by their ears or cross their eyes when imitating their patients. Dr Simeon didn't roll his eyes at John's delusions, but rather treated them as an doctor should—like symptoms of his illness.

The ran was tapping gently at his window when she entered his room later that afternoon. He always took his medicine without thinking, like he didn't even realise he was doing it, but then afterwards he would beam at her like he'd never been happier to see anyone in his life. It was hard to tear her eyes from him sometimes.

"Remember when we went to Akhaten?"

While she taught not to encourage his delusions, Clara knew better than to shoot them down. Plus, his stories were always good, so it was with genuine curiosity that she replied, "Memory's a bit foggy. When was this?"

"Oh, months ago. The marketplace and Merry Gejelh, and the burning sun that was going to consume everything… until you came back. You saved everyone."

He kissed her knuckles and Clara knew what she should have known before—he was in love with her. She should have requested a transfer right then, but the truth was that she was already too attached, and rather enamoured with him herself. She understood why Dr Song had fallen in love with him; there was something so honest and good about him. It was like his separation from reality kept him from being tainted by it.

She started visiting him more frequently. They would play cards or eat lunch with each other, and Clara would do her best to ground him in reality, but he would always correct her whenever she mentioned Jenny being a nurse or Simeon being a medical doctor.

One evening he didn't take his meds like he usually did. Instead he stared at her with tears in his eyes and stood from the bed, looming over her as he continued to watch her sadly.

"You came back."

"Of course I did," she said. "I always come at 9 o'clock every night, except for Sundays."

He gave a wet laugh. "Sundays are boring."

She couldn't help but giggle. "Yes, and they're my day off." She frowned. "John… _Doctor_, what's the matter?"

His dipped forward, threading his fingers through her hair as his soft lips pressed against hers. She gasped with surprise when he pulled back after the brief contact, but instead of pushing at his chest or exiting the room, she stared up at him. She'd never stood beside him like this before.

She'd never kissed him before, either.

Taking her lack of refusal as acceptance, he pushed her towards the corner of the room, right next to the door but out of range of the window and right underneath the surveillance camera. She pressed his fingers into her waist and kissed her slowly, passionately, and very unlike a man who was suffering from mental illness. Her arms were tense at his sides, the cup with his two blue pills still clutched in her right hand, but she didn't push him away. She knew she should, but he stirred something inside of her that she hadn't felt in a long time, not just passion but something more profound, something that frightened her.

"John," she said breathlessly when he broke away. She closed her eyes when he laid his forehead against hers and took deep breaths. "This is wrong. I'm your nurse; you can't kiss me."

"I love you, Clara."

A pained sound escaped her throat.

"I do. It's not easy for me to say and I know I probably shouldn't—it isn't fair to you. But I do. I love you so much, and I don't ever want to have to watch you walk away again.

"John…"

He cut her off with another kiss, this one heavily fuelled by passion. Clara struggled against him as he pressed into her, but before he could pull back to ask what was the matter, he was bodily removed from her by a pair of strong hands. She watched in horror as two orderlies restrained him to his bed and injected him with a sedative to keep him from thrashing and crying out.

Tears fell from her eyes as he stared at her, chest heaving as his breathing slowed and his eyes drifted shut. He had shouted her name over and over before he fell unconscious. It wasn't until Doctor Simeon grabbed her arm that Clara was able to look away. He led her out of the room and into the meeting area, where he offered her a cup of tea that she declined.

"Obviously this isn't working. I know it's not your fault—he attacked you—but we'll have to reassign you now that there's been an incident."

"What? No. He didn't attack me, he was just confused. He didn't hurt me, if that's what you were thinking."

"Did you encourage his advances?" Simeon asked suspiciously.

Clara took too long to respond to seem credible. "No. But he hadn't taken his medication yet, and I was fifteen minutes late."

"That wouldn't explain his behaviour. I'm afraid he's fallen in love with you."

She didn't know what to say to that; it wasn't like she could disagree.

"He falls in love with most of his nurses. Perhaps it's out of pity that I always assign him the pretty young ones."

Clara blinked rapidly in surprised. Had he really just said that?

Simeon sighed. "We'll reassign you to another floor in the morning. Perhaps you'd do well with Vastra's patient; he believes he's Jack the Ripper."

"I don't think I should be reassigned."

"Let it go, Nurse Oswald. It's done. John Smith has been in my charge for the majority of his life. I know how to handle him."

"Well, obviously not, otherwise he would be getting better."

She couldn't believe she'd just said that. Simeon's face hardened.

"I'd walk out that door right now if I still wanted to have a job in the morning."

Clara stared back at him and saw the ice that John had always spoke of. She finally tore her gaze away and pushed through the double doors on her way out of the ward. She cried during her shower and then stayed up all night chewing her thumbnail and worrying about John and Dr Simeon. Maybe it was stress and the lack of sleep, but she was starting to wonder if there wasn't some truth to John's madness—what if Dr Simeon was out to get him?

Weeks later, she was writing in the log for her new patient on the third floor when the door to the stairwell opened and John appeared, out of breath with eyes wild. She should have been afraid for her safety, but she was more worried for his.

"John, what are you doing?" she hissed as he approached her. It was late, so no one else was about. The receptionist had disappeared for tea.

John wrapped his arms around her and buried his face against her neck. "Thank god I've found you. We've got to get out of here, Clara. It's not safe for you anymore. They're watching you."

She should chalk this up to him being mad and paranoid, but for some reason, she believed him. "What? Who's been watching me?"

"Simeon and his men. They think you know something."

"Know something about what?"

"About me. About why I'm here. They think you know my real name."

"What?"

He was talking to her in a way he never had before. His tone wasn't dreamy or forlorn, but rather direct and to the point. He spoke with real urgency.

The elevator dinged. Clara gasped and grabbed his hand, leading him back into the stairwell. "How did you even get out of your room?" she asked as they descended to the ground floor.

"Snuck out. I've done it loads of times."

She found herself smiling. "I bet you have, you naughty boy."

Instead of reporting him or taking him back to his room, Clara helped him escape. She didn't know why she did it—she was breaking the law, risking her career and his health because she had this gut feeling that he would suffer more at the Institute than anywhere else.

They stayed in a hotel outside of the city that first night. Clara hadn't stopped at her place for clothes or anything. They didn't even sleep, but instead lay on the bed talking to each other all night about Simeon and what they were going to do. He still wanted her to call him Doctor, which made her uncomfortable because it reminded her that he was unwell and made her feel like what she was doing was wrong, but he had a plan.

They had grabbed his file before leaving, and the Doctor spent the entire night going over every detail looking for clues. "That's not the medicine I was taking," he finally said at 5 in the morning when Clara had started to drift to sleep.

"What do you mean?"

"This antipsychotic. It's described as an oval white pill, but mine were blue."

She sat up with a frown and pulled the file from her hand so she could have a look. "There must be some mistake."

There wasn't. Weeks later, after evading the cops and spending evenings in cheap hotels and train stations, Clara and the Doctor found the proof they needed to send Simeon to jail for life.

"He's confessed to everything," the detective told them while Clara sat next to John in the station, holding his hand. "Simeon was part of the group that killed your parents. He didn't know you'd witnessed the murders until it was too late. That's why he…" The Detective shuffled on his feet awkwardly. "That's why he spent the past twenty years swapping your meds for hallucinogens. He wanted to make everyone think you were crazy."

The Doctor's eyes were red as he stared at the floor. He hadn't taken any medication in days; he was suffering from withdrawal and the terrifying reality that came with full lucidity. "Why didn't he just kill me?" he asked.

The detective coughed nervously. "We think he felt guilty for what he'd done."

Now that they were no longer running from the law, John stayed with Clara at her flat. He wasn't the best company. He stayed in bed most of the time and kept to himself, but sometimes he would reach for her hand when she was making them tea or he'd run into her outside the bathroom door and smile when they did the little dance until he finally let her pass by him.

They shared a bed, but he hadn't kissed her since before Simeon had her reassigned. She had kissed his cheek and forehead several times over the past few weeks to soothe him while he suffered through withdrawal or the knowledge of what had been done to him. She couldn't imagine what he was going through, but she did her best to help him ground himself in reality.

"Sometimes I think Simeon's won," he said suddenly one evening.

He was curled up on his side facing away from her. Clara turned towards him. "How do you mean?"

"I feel like this isn't the real world. All that mad stuff, me being the Doctor, a time-travelling alien in a box that was bigger on the inside… that felt more real than this does."

Clara scooted up behind him and kissed his shoulder. "I'm so sorry." Hesitantly, she leaned forward and pressed a lingering kiss against the bare skin at his neck. She inhaled and exhaled heavily before asking, "Does that feel real?"

He turned to face her, his expression unreadable as he searched her eyes. "You were always real." He lifted a hand to her cheek. "You seemed so impossible… My impossible girl." His gaze lowered to her lips and he added softly, "You were always real."

They came together softly at first, but then months of unspoken attraction had them rolling against each other as their lips met for frenzied kisses.

She didn't know how she'd known he wasn't mad, but perhaps that was because she was a bit mad herself for falling in love with a man whose head had been in the clouds.

* * *

This fic was written as a reply to the following prompt by craftysquidz on tumblr: "Could you do an AU where the Doctor is human, and has a mental illness which made him create all of his adventures in his head? He is convinced he is actually the Doctor, when in reality he is actually just John Smith. And when he meets Clara (his new doctor/psychiatrist/whatever the term is) overnight he creates all of the adventures of season 7 and falls in love with her."


End file.
